The war reaches our door: evacuation from Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts

Pavlohrad, 14 August 2025

Fighting in eastern Ukraine is intensifying, and with it comes a new, large-scale wave of evacuations. In recent days, this wave has swept across Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions. In just the past 24 hours alone, humanitarian missions, volunteers, and police have evacuated nearly 500 people from eastern Ukraine – mostly families with children. For comparison, the same number of people was evacuated this spring over the course of an entire month along the whole contact line.

Familiar roads are turning dangerous, quiet villages are becoming battle zones, and children are once again becoming displaced. Access to water, education and medical services is deteriorating. Drones and bombs are now reaching towns and villages that, just at the start of summer, were considered rear areas and relatively safe. A cloud of anxiety and tense waiting hangs over thousands of families in eastern Ukraine, suddenly finding themselves within 15 kilometres of the front line.

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And they must make a heartbreaking choice.

“I have four children: my eldest is 11, and my youngest is just three months old. What are we leaving behind? We’re leaving everything,” says 43-year-old Oleksii from the village of Zoryane in Dnipropetrovsk region, averting his gaze and trying hard to hold back tears.

Oleksii and his wife are leaving behind their house, their pets, and his elderly mother, who still refuses to leave.

“It’s very hard. I never wanted to go. But we’re leaving for one reason only – for the safety of the children,” he says, helping his children onto a white evacuation bus, carefully handing baby Rodion to his wife, and saying goodbye to his mother as explosions echo in the distance. This time, the tears come.

On the borderline

White humanitarian evacuation buses travel along the boundary between Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, stopping in settlements where elderly people, families, children, and even pets are waiting. The route passes by lines of concrete tank traps and under protective mesh strung across the road to guard against drone attacks. Even so, drivers try not to linger — the threat of shelling remains.

Anti-drone mesh.

Photo: Oleksii Filippov

There are several buses today — the number of people needing to be rescued is high.

“Unfortunately, a new wave of…